


for those below

by princegrantaire



Series: a world with love [16]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Heroes in Crisis (DCU Comics)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Established Relationship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Road Trips, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 19:44:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18453347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/pseuds/princegrantaire
Summary: Joker agrees to go to Sanctuary with Bruce. It might not be their brightest idea."I’m just supposed to say that?” Joker squints at the camera. “Fine.” A vague wave of a spindly hand, mostly meaningless. “I’m Joker. Or, I guess, the Joker. Whatever you prefer. My… I’m here with Bruce. Thought I’d help. I do that these days. Sometimes.”





	for those below

**Author's Note:**

> i love love love explorations of mental health issues, especially joker's and bruce's very specific issues, and everything tom king is doing with sanctuary so this happening was probably. pretty expected, tom's my most beloved writer after all! real quick notes: this takes place in a universe where the sanctuary massacre never happened, joker & bruce have been together for a while, damian & tim are the only kids living at home (and nothing ever happened with joker & harley, ivy's just generally mad at him)
> 
> also italics mark sanctuary confessions, meant to imitate the tone & style of actual hic issues!
> 
> enjoy!

_“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doin’ here.”_

_Joker looks almost sheepish, standing too close to the camera and sort of swaying back and forth. He’s nervous or, otherwise, quite genuinely confused. If it’s a twist of fate that’s brought him here, he’s certainly making it obvious enough._

_“You’re like, what? Some kinda robot?” He tilts his head. “Bruce said you know stuff. Do you know stuff?”_

_When no answer comes, Joker reaches out for the camera. Or, rather, the robot in question._

_The transmission ends._

  
\---

  
On the drive to Sanctuary, overcome by miles and miles of nothingness, what he’s agreed to dawns on Joker in increments. In fact, several things occur to him all at once:

  1. Up until now, the furthest he’s ventured from home had been Metropolis. That’s just across the river and it, too, had engaged in the familiar rhythms of big cities. Any rural constraints are yet to be experienced.
  2. There’s been no mention of a return date -- just the dreaded, softly-spoken _you can take all the time you need, Joker_ , as if that’s ever benefited anyone.
  3. Tim remains unhugged, back at the manor.



Bruce isn’t saying much. Too focused on the road. Seething with vague and mostly misplaced rage, maybe. Joker remembers this morning’s heated phone call and though suspicions veer towards Clark as the culprit, he can’t tell for sure who’d been on the other end.

“So. Soooo, did you wanna stop for a snack?” Joker can’t, through some kind of instinct bordering on legal obligation, keep quiet for extended periods of time.

“You don’t eat.” All the same, Bruce’s grip on the steering wheel eases somewhat. Small miracles.

“Hmm.” Bruce’s got him there. “No,” Joker graciously allows, “but you do.”

“I’ve got snacks.”

A glance spared for the backseat and the packets of beef jerky resting there proves Bruce right. They drive in silence for a while, Joker fiddling with the radio in-between those frequent breaks in reception and not quite finding anything he’d consider music. Half an hour later, he’s nearly bored to tears by the sight of corn and not much else. The possibility of biting Bruce arises.

“Who called this morning anyway?” Joker asks and does not, in fact, lean over and bite Bruce’s jaw.

They must be getting close, the view’s been nothing but fields for an offensive amount of time. Heck, they seem to be the only car on the road by now. Worrying news for just about anyone who can’t rest easy at night without fourteen car alarms blaring at once and the miscellaneous muttering of Gothamites.

“Oh,” Bruce breathes out, sort of deflates. “I was hoping you didn’t hear… all that. Clark’s not so sure about you coming to Sanctuary.” It’s a faltering confession, like six years of practice haven’t made it any easier to spit out the truth.

 _Join the club_ , Joker thinks and doesn’t say. “I mean!” He flails without meaning to. “Why am _I_ coming to Sanctuary?”

Okay. Maybe. Possibly. _Perhaps_ he’s getting cold feet.

“Because you said you wanted to come along?” Bruce says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Another great point.

“To be fair,” Joker starts, “I distinctly remember saying ‘hey, baby, where’re you going?’ and you said Sanctuary and I asked ‘what’s that?’ and I don’t remember what you said so now I’m not so sure what Sanctuary _is_ but it’s been fifty hours and we’re still on this road and I don’t think we’ve seen a single house and Clark doesn’t want me there and Clark loves me! Usually!”

Joker takes a great gulping breath. His heart’s racing. That-- hadn’t been planned.

“It has _not_ been fifty hours,” Bruce finally says, sighing. “Joker, it’s a three-day drive since, you know, you can’t get near airports and Dick’s using the Batwing. Plus, I mean… I thought a road trip might be nice. Just the two of us.” He’s faintly flushed. All that sentimentality. Joker thinks he gets it.

It _is_ nice, in its own sweaty, frustrating way. A smile can’t exactly be helped.

“I’m gonna feed you now,” Joker decides and twists around, skinny arms outstretched as he tries to reach for Bruce’s so-called snacks.

“Okay!” 

  
\---

  
It’s the third time Bruce’s yawned in the past five minutes. Joker eyes him suspiciously, armed with the knowledge that this is the same man who’d forgone sleep for days on end on multiple occasions in the pursuit of answers. The corn sightings have ceased but that might be just a lucky break, either night or boredom-induced blindness intervening here. His own frozen reflection in the window stares back at him, unchanged for miles and miles and miles. Nowhere to run, here in the dark. 

Joker does the noble thing and elbows Bruce, who proceeds to screech and nearly drives them off the road. “I’m awake!” he exclaims, rubbing his side.

The force of it doesn’t especially matter, Joker’s too thin to be anything other than extraordinarily sharp all-over and he’s got the enthusiasm to match. The gesture’s not dampened by too many layers either, he’s been down to his button-up shirt since the early afternoon. “Sorry,” he mumbles and watches Bruce yawn again.

“Do you wanna switch?” Joker adds, approximately thirteen minutes later.

Bruce stands up straight then, _so_ effectively startled awake that it surprises Joker, too, and they exchange a set of wide-eyed looks.

“Nope.” Bruce clears his throat and aims for a smile. “I was thinking we could stop for the night? There’s gotta be a motel around here.”

There is, in fact, a neon-lit monstrosity on the side of the road that might, on a good day, pass for a motel. It makes a last-minute guest appearance around the same time Bruce starts looking likely to pass out at the wheel. Joker thinks he could handle it, if necessary. They park out front, mostly unwillingly.

Another look is exchanged. Bruce seems to be thinking very hard about something, squinting slightly at Joker, evidently passing through the painful motions of mental calculations.

“You can wait here,” he finally decides. “If you wanna.”

  
\---

_  
“I don’t talk much. Usually.” Bruce tethers on the edge of anxiety, tempted to reach for a cowl that isn’t there. Just him. Black turtleneck and barely anything to hide behind. “There was this one time--” He chuckles, self-deprecating. “I didn’t speak for almost two years, after the-- after my parents. Therapy doesn’t really work, for me. I know it does for other people.”_

_A deep breath. Sanctuary sits and listens. Time doesn’t quite flow here._

_“It’s easier with him. With Joker, I mean. He just_ knows _and I don’t have to try so hard, like with everyone else.” Bruce pauses. He’s been here before. He’d been here at the beginning. It’s never any less unnerving. “People used to say I seem happier. Brighter. That was before we came out.” He doesn’t stumble on the term, anymore._

_“I think it’s still true.”_

  
\---

  
Once Joker figures out the intricacies of opening the car door and stumbles out, he spends inordinately long staring up at the flashing _Vacancy_ sign. He’s either mesmerised by the lights, which is likely enough on its own, or trying very hard to parse its meaning. It takes a while, preoccupied as he is, to notice Bruce is yet to return.

“Hmm.”

He stretches, takes his time. Joker doesn’t, necessarily, believe in watches but admits to himself that one might be nice right about now. It might be faintly past midnight, going by his very dubious sense of time.

Another few minutes and he pushes the motel’s door open. It creaks, traces of disuse all over.

“--No, we don’t want _two_ rooms, my partner and I would be fine with a queen room,” Bruce is saying, frustrated. He’s acquired a coffee somewhere along the line but it’s being used exclusively for having-something-to-clutch purposes. Joker considers that and goes to wrap his arms around Bruce, it’s not particularly half-hearted, as far as hugs from behind go. He rests his chin on Bruce’s shoulder, waits for that startled stiffness to ease up.

“A twin room?” the guy at the reception desk offers, disinterested even after a glance up at Joker. _That’s_ rare. The bleached skin does it for most. Joker tries not to take offense.

Bruce appears to go through several stages of grief. “Look, we just--”

“We’ll take it!” Joker declares and some sort of magician’s grand flourish bursts out of him.

  
\---

  
Later, up the stairs and through the hallway leading to their newly-acquired room, Joker links his arm with Bruce’s and stares at him meaningfully until Bruce hands him the key. Not the intended result. Joker hands it back and stares some more.

“Thanks,” Bruce says, leans against Joker for a moment, though that mostly serves to upset an already precarious balance. “For what you did earlier.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t want you breaking the ol’ rule tonight.”

Joker’s smiling, bright-eyed, and Bruce doesn’t bother stifling a faint laugh. There’s a warm intimacy here, stretching between them, the thread of it curling around their hearts.

“So, tell me ‘bout Sanctuary,” Joker says as he tries to push the door open and steps aside when it proves too heavy for his limited resources to be effective. Bruce does the honours. “It’s like, a mental… health… place, right?”

 _It’s not Arkham?_ is the real question here, cut short by an abrupt tendency for the coward’s way out. Highly unlike him, Joker knows.

Bruce sets down his coffee on the nearest nightstand and crashes on the adjacent bed. For a second, Joker fears he’s passed on to greener pastures. “It _is_ that, yeah,” comes the mumbled answer, after a beat. “State of the art mental facility in rural Nebraska. Clark’s idea, I think. He claims it was mutual. It’s staffed by, uh, robots, built with his tech, Diana’s compassion and my… will. Apparently.” If there’s a trace of embarrassment here, Joker doesn’t quite know what to do with it. Bruce is tracing shapes in the air as he speaks. “There's a VR room and the robots have all this information on every single visitor. They’re supposed to help.”

“Do they?”

“I think so. There’s a sense of privacy there, people appreciate that in this line of business.” Bruce sighs. “C’mere.”

Joker breathes out a laugh and shakes his head, currently caught in a largely distracted attempt to take off his bowtie and shoes simultaneously. “I wanna push the beds together. That’s the only reason I got us this room!”

“And we can do that later,” Bruce insists, pats his stomach for good measure.

“ _You’re_ gonna pass out later,” Joker points out, though he’s clambering on Bruce, only successful on the shoes front regarding his previous endeavour. They’re face to face now, noses squished together. He can’t help smiling. “You happy now?”

All he gets from Bruce is a thoughtful noise and then he’s being pulled into a slow kiss. Joker melts right into it, hands instinctively cupping Bruce’s face, warm and hazy with the late hour. There’s barely any room with Bruce taking up the majority of an already-cramped bed but it’s _good_ and it doesn’t take too long for Joker’s fingers to sneak under Bruce’s shirt, skittering across familiar scars. It’s never any less entrancing, can’t be when Bruce is always all big and soft and every dream Joker’s ever had.

They stop kissing just long enough to get their clothes off, underwear and, in Joker’s case, socks remaining like some last vestiges of exhaustion. All of this seems vital, here in the dark, pressed up as they are, legs tangled together.

“How tired are you?” Joker breathes out against Bruce’s lips. He’s not hard but he _could_ be and it doesn’t seem much of a stretch with the way Bruce keeps moving under him.

“Extremely,” Bruce says but they’re kissing again, careful closeness and matching smiles.

  
\---

  
Forty-eight hours. A few more pitstops. Sanctuary lies ahead, an abrupt island in the middle of the ocean. Not quite salvation. It’s--

Well, it’s a house. There might be a shed out back.

It’s _just_ a house. Decently-sized, sure, but Joker’s lived in a manor for six years now. Houses don’t really cut it anymore.

And, despite himself, it’s still exactly that, flanked by endless farmland. Fields and sky and silence as far as the eye can see. Joker doesn’t say a word but he recognises the shakiness settling in his bones, the panic rising up his throat. He’s missed the city plenty already but they’d been on the move, the reality of it hadn’t been so cutting. Here he is now, ignoring a persistent chorus of _no escape_ going ‘round his head.

Joker follows Bruce’s lead, steps out of the car and onto the gravel road stretching beyond. That’s when the isolation hits, even padded rooms let in screams every now and again. Nothing’s here. Not even the wind.

“Sure isn’t Gotham,” he says as Bruce busies himself with their meagre luggage.

“Yeah, it gets pretty quiet around here.” Bruce doesn’t seem so sure of it himself but it’s reassuring enough to know it’s not just Joker that’s missing home already. He’s tempted to plan a hit on the car for the noise alone.

The front door opens by itself as they approach. Motion sensors or something. Joker’s not so good with technology, at least nothing implemented past the 1930s.

Just like that, an elderly couple steps out on the porch, followed by a redhead somewhere in her mid-twenties. Joker’s not so good with ages either. He doesn’t freeze but it’s close, clutches Bruce’s forearm when some misaimed instinct rears up. Hard to tell when he’s gained _that_.

“They’re the robots I told you about,” Bruce says, kind like he’s gone through the same confusion himself, at the same time as the old man launches into cheerful _Welcome to Sanctuary!_. It doesn’t sound particularly robotic to Joker and notions of trust and flesh and blood aren’t too far off either.

“Our home is your home,” the young woman declares, smiling too widely. Joker’s seen a few of those smiles in his time. “It’s such a pleasure to have you.”

Joker waves. It seems, for about a quarter of a second, like the reasonable thing to do. Everyone’s looking at him, fixed stares, odd and forbidding, nature holding its breath. “Won’t you come in?” the old woman finally asks, resuming her smile. “Won’t you come in? Won’t you come in? Won’t you come in? Won’t you come in?”

On and on. An infinite loop. Here’s what separates one world from another.

It reminds Joker of one of those animatronics at the Bonus Brothers Carnival, where he’d spent a number of years cohabiting with its lifeless residents. He’d mess with the switches sometimes, during some outbreak of loneliness or another, and there’d be the whirring of long-dead mechanisms and an echo of some oft-repeated line. He’s not, in the grand scheme of things, nearly as unnerved as Bruce looks.

“Um. You’re probably just not in the system,” Bruce tries, pushing past the robots. He really _does_ seem unnerved. Joker’s seen that same look in his eyes in the midst of some particularly disturbing case, staring up at the computer in the cave for hours on end.

Not much of a good sign, he’s sure.

The old man follows them in and any glitch that’s overcome his wife seems to have sorted itself out. If anything, he looks content to wait out their conversation. Joker draws in a sharp breath, he’s intimately familiar with what’s expected of him here.

 _It’s not Arkham_ , he reminds himself as he riffles through his pockets. He’s not being patted down, there’s no strip search, it’s not Arkham. The thought helps, for a little while. Joker empties his pockets with some reluctance -- an old switchblade, the gum he’d found on the floor at the gas station a couple of miles back, a cartoonishly oversized ring of keys. There it all goes. As he prepares to hand it away, the old man gives a good-natured chuckle.

“No need for that here, son,” he says, amused, and Joker stops in his tracks. That cuts a little too close and it’s all disorienting from here on, if Sanctuary’s greeters have been programmed to recognise the signs of--

Joker doesn’t want to speculate.

His face feels hot. It must be obvious. He’d forgone makeup about halfway through the trip and just about anything enters and remains in the _too obvious_ category on ghost-white skin. All that junk gets shoved back in his pockets and he offers Bruce a questioning look, wordless.

“How about a tour of the place?” the old man asks.

“You can go with him, if you want, and I’ll get us settled in,” Bruce suggests and Joker doesn’t know when they’d started holding hands.

Better play by the rules.

“Okay.”

They stare at each other for a moment, unsure. Joker presses a kiss to Bruce’s cheek, just a peck, and off they go.

  
\---

_  
“Did I--” Bruce doesn’t quite face the camera. “I did that to him. Right? I broke-- It’s all like that for him, now. There’s no sanctuary.”_

_He crosses and uncrosses his arms. Once. Twice. Can’t seem to decide -- open or close, bring it up now or let it burrow in deep._

_“I thought Arkham was helping, at the beginning.” There’s disdain in that name, bitter aftertaste and all. It’s a conversation Bruce’s had with himself a thousand times before in various forms. “I didn’t know. No one knew. And then it was just-- necessity. Where else can they go?”_

_Bruce draws in a shuddering breath._

  
\---

  
Joker’s handed a robe and a mask. Anonymity, he’s told. The mask glimmers in the afternoon sun, his own reflection distorted, himself and not, there and gone again. They’re in a modest living room, all part of the tour.

“Most people wear these in the common areas,” the old man says, pleasantly detached, “Some don’t. It’s your choice, really.”

 _His_ choice. Not the best track record with that.

A corridor follows, welcoming enough, not Arkham’s serpentine twists and turns, not the manor’s grand portraits either. It’s carpeted. Joker trips a few times, inattention and a natural sort of clumsiness, maybe endearing in the right light.

“Don’t really have to go to the common areas either, we’ll bring your meals up to your room. Good home cooking,” the man adds, like Joker’s interested in anything other than the absence of straitjackets, an orderly-shaped hole wherever he looks. They come to a stop and Joker nearly trips on the carpet again. “And here’s the room. When you’re ready for the chamber sessions, you let us know!”

“Chamber sessions,” Joker repeats but he’s lost his chance already. The old man’s retreated, all even and careful steps, and here Joker stands alone, hand trembling on a door handle.

When he steps inside, bypassing the bag abandoned on the floor, he finds Bruce on the phone. He’s pacing around the small room, not particularly agitated, more of a weakness for those idle movements any conversation demands. “Yeah, we just got here,” Bruce says and mouths _Tim_ at Joker’s telltale shrug.

And just like that, the black hole gnawing at his stomach disappears. “Can I talk to him?” Joker might be kind of bouncing in place. It’s a coincidence.

“Uh, listen, Joker wants to talk to you but you can tell me about the Steph stuff afterwards, okay, old chum?” Whatever Tim’s saying must be convincing enough because Bruce is handing him the phone a moment later and Joker’s nearly knocked out by the realisation that he gets to do this. Casual. Easy. It weighs too much.

A moment passes.

“Hey, kiddo!”

So far so good. Joker doesn’t make a habit of handling phones. All the same, he’s not so off balance here. There’s the comforting familiarity of a stifled laugh, Tim’s mildly excited greeting, the faraway sounds of a life he’s grown accustomed to. “How’re you, Timberly?”

The peripheries of a family are still more than Joker’s ever had.

  
\---  
  
_  
Truth be told, the point of these little confessionals, stopped and started when one pleases, is yet to occur to Joker. He’s stiff against the wall, like any undue sense of showmanship has not only left him but appears unlikely to ever return._

 _“I still don’t know--” He shrugs one shoulder, dejected. “I don’t get a lot of things, I think. Life things. Like-- What?” Green eyes go wide. “You_ can _talk!”_

_Whatever he’s been asked, it’s deemed worthy to wait a minute longer as he stares, perplexed enough to have stopped fiddling with his cufflinks. For now. “I’m just supposed to say that?” Joker squints at the camera. “Fine.” A vague wave of a spindly hand, mostly meaningless. “I’m Joker. Or, I guess, the Joker. Whatever you prefer. My… I’m here with Bruce. Thought I’d help. I do that these days. Sometimes.”_

_He doesn’t sound too sure of it himself._

  
\---

  
The bed’s big enough for two, which is a definite upgrade from the motels they’ve subjected themselves to these past few nights. Joker curls up in on himself, back against the wall, and tries to focus on just that. That’s the thing, the here-and-now is easy when you’ve got nothing to think back to, no shipwreck to dwell on. Tonight isn’t so kind.

“What’re chamber sessions?” Joker asks because it’s been on his mind all day and scratching at an indistinct scar on his wrist can only take him so far.

Bruce hums, like he’s thinking, and Joker watches him in the darkness as he gets ready for bed, the quiet movements of a routine he’s now learned by heart. That’s a welcome respite, too. Joker doesn’t elaborate on his own glum imaginings of what these chamber sessions might entail.

He’s not prone to this, generally. Thoughtless optimism carefully envelops this kind of episode. Usually.

“Remember that VR room I mentioned?” Bruce says as the bed dips, a sudden warm weight against Joker’s side. “That’s, uh, a form of exposure therapy, I guess, but not necessarily. They call it a chamber session. You go in and you say what you want to see and Sanctuary does that for you. It can be a place or a person or anything at all, really.”

“I see.”

Joker doesn’t.

Untethered from this lacklustre explanation, he rolls over and pulls Bruce over him, not unlike a blanket. They lie there in silence. It’s never a _cold_ togetherness with them.

“Am I crushing you?” It’s occurred to Bruce with some delay.

“Yeah.” Joker laughs, too loud in the night. “But you’re very soft.”

  
\---  
  
  
A crack in the curtains lets in a shade of hazy morning light. Bruce is snoring faintly, snuggled up tight but no longer life-threatening. It’s quiet save for the occasional bird, nice enough on its own. So, here’s the catch: Joker can’t sleep. 

The lifelong sensibilities of an insomniac never abandon Joker for too many days at a time. He stares up at the ceiling for a concerning amount of time then very carefully extracts himself from Bruce’s grip, presses a kiss to his forehead and makes his way downstairs to what has been previously referred to as a common area. He’s still wearing the button-up shirt and waistcoat he’d fallen asleep in, which isn’t nearly as rare as it should be.

It’s all as deserted as when they’d arrived and Joker nearly considers missing Bruce’s warmth when a flash of red passing by catches his eye and he ducks behind the nearest plant.

Not very effective. 

He’s too tall, for one thing. Additionally, not very likely to blend in. The misfortunes pile on.

“Joker?” someone who is almost definitely Poison Ivy asks. Scratch that. It’s _absolutely_ Poison Ivy. She’s wearing that Sanctuary-induced robe but a glimpse of green peeks around her neck and, more obviously, that red shock of hair remains unmistakable. Joker swallows thickly.

“You’re here. Too!” He straightens up, jittery. “Ivy.”

Her eyes narrow and effortless suspicion shines through. “Yeah,” Ivy says, sounding it out. “I thought you were dead.”

For the longest time, Joker just stares. A six or seven year absence on the rogue scene dawns on him all at once. Contact has been minimal, he’d be willing to admit that much, but surely Tim’s burgeoning friendship with Eddie, the occasional late-night visits from Harvey when he starts missing Bruce and _the good old days_ \-- Something. Anything. He’d assumed people talked in the lounge, reported sightings of a missing Joker every now and again.

“Dead as in… dead.” He’s frowning. “Did someone say that?”

Ivy shrugs. “Mostly me being optimistic.”

 _Of course_.

“Why’re you here anyway?” And Joker can’t quite help it, choking on a bitterness he hasn’t felt in decades. It’s an old companion all the same, an understanding that he’d never quite belonged to any particular clique and that working with him had often been equalled to something with the flair of a suicide mission. A mystery preferably left alone.

“It’s better than Arkham, isn’t it?” Ivy’s saying, exactly as forthcoming as Joker had expected.

  
\---  
  
  
_“Okay, so, I’m here.” Joker stops to think. “And I’ve said that before. Maybe. But I am here and I’m talking about it, except I don’t know what_ it _is. Bruce says it’s good to talk about it but who’s gonna believe that comin’ from him, right?”_

_It seems he’s misspoken. “Me. Obviously, I believe him or, like, I wouldn’t be here. You know?” For once, that’s a rhetorical question. Somewhere along the line, in the nebulous space between the few days spent here, Joker’s understood he’s unlikely to get a reply from Sanctuary personnel in this particular setting. It’s a steep learning curve. If it becomes obvious to Joker that he’s going in circles, he’s not slowing down any time soon._

_“I just didn’t think there’d be-- Why’s Ivy here? That’s all I’m sayin’! She’s fine, she doesn’t-- Not like--”_

_He’s unravelling, not so steadily._

_“I don’t…” Joker’s all wringing hands and not-quite-tearful confessions. Maybe it’s too much, even for him. “I don’t know if I deserve better than Arkham.”_

_There’s that finishing blow._

  
\---

  
Halfway through the week and in the midst of the first grey afternoon they’ve had here, Joker decides _chamber sessions_ , as a term and no more, doesn’t sound nearly as threatening as initially believed. A side-effect of the weather, hopefully. It’s not the pleasantly familiar company of Gotham’s dark skies but it’s _close_ and they’d been wandering the fields earlier, hands brushing together, lousy with some unspoken agreement that they’re not missing the city quite so bad if the words never make it out.

“It means a lot to me,” Bruce says, chin resting on an exceedingly bony shoulder, “that you’re here.”

The position’s usually reversed, Joker’s got a knack for tackling Bruce into a hug from behind at the most inopportune moments. This one’s not particularly ill-timed. If nothing else, Bruce’s presence is steadying and Joker’s never not in urgent need of just that. He leans back faintly, sighs softly at the kiss on the cheek he gets for his troubles.

“Well. You went to that one carnival for me.”

As fate would have it, Bruce’s gone to _multiple_ carnivals for Joker’s sake.

The room stretches on and on, all-white but it’s tiles and not padded walls gone filthy with decades of dried blood. A mantra of _it’s not Arkham_ follows and by the end of it, Joker can’t tell whether he’d been speaking out loud at all.

“I love you,” Bruce whispers and that’s rare enough that Joker comes to a stuttering stop, in awe after all this time.

“I love you, too.” A deep breath. “Do I just… say what I wanna see?”

Bruce nods and Joker feels rather than sees the gesture. He twists around until they can exchange a couple of kisses, hurried until it isn’t and they break apart to smile.

“Sanctuary,” Joker starts. Something in the air shifts. “Can I see my Arkham cell?”

Here lies disaster, proceed with caution.

So.

The walls fade away to what he’d expected all along. Something drips from the ceiling, partially muffled by the very nature of the cell. For the longest time, Joker fears this abrupt absence of sound. There’s the dripping and there’s his own harsh breathing, increasingly audible, though the same could be said on a good day.

“Joker, I--”

And that’s Bruce.

Poor Bruce, who’s just now realising who he’s brought here, how Joker’s still haunting those halls or, worse, how the asylum’s still haunting _him_ , one misstep and he’s there again.

“Oh,” Joker mouths. He _is_ there again.

Perfect delivery, no delayed punchline. It might be the funniest joke he’s ever managed. Joker doesn’t feel like laughing. “Why Arkham, right?” That’s what he does. He talks and talks and talks because nothing’s more unbearable than stopping. “Well, I don’t know! It’s all Arkham, right?”

It’s not such a terrible thing to be.

“At the beginning, I used to think-- hope… I used to _hope_ that someone was gonna come eventually, y’know?” He hears his own voice shake and pushes on. Bruce’s turned to face him some time ago but Joker doesn’t want to see the inevitable concern. “Like, yeah, everything’s broken up here --” he knocks on his temple, “-- and it ain’t gonna be fixed but someone’s gotta be missing me, even… like this. There’s gotta be a home or something to return to, right? Everyone’s got one.”

He’s sure he’s said the words before, in various combinations, just never this one.

“But, as we all know, no one ever came and all I had after Arkham was… _you_.” It’s difficult, in its own way, to engage in some grand sweeping gesture when Joker can’t or doesn’t particularly want to meet the eyes of his one-man audience. “And I still have you! And--”

Joker chokes on a sob without meaning to, standing stock-still even now. If Bruce’s arms come to wrap around him, he doesn’t know. “I still have you,” he repeats, slow, like he’s trying to make himself understand. “We’re really just gonna go _home_ after this.” And he can’t help smiling then, throwing himself hard and fast against Bruce.

“Yeah,” Bruce breathes out, clinging just as much as Joker is, “Yeah, we’re going home.”

  
\---

  
It’s been approximately four hours since they’ve left Sanctuary behind. The fields remain, the farmhouse has sunk into them by now. Never to be seen again. Hopefully. 

Joker facepalms _so_ forcefully and _so_ abruptly that the ensuing slapping noise either resonates or is simply loud enough to make Bruce shoot him a concerned look. “Goddamn, I should’ve asked Sanctuary for, uh, what’s it called-- the big mouse? Yellow?” It all sort of melts out of him, various degrees of frenzy.

That concerned look deepens.

“Huh?” Bruce’s eyes widen momentarily but then he’s turning back to the road and all that’s left of this possible realisation is another remarkably animated _huh?_.

Okay.

Joker can take care of that.

“You know,” he insists and the road’s empty enough that he doesn’t immediately fear for his life when he starts poking Bruce’s shoulder, “Tim’s… thing. From his room? Like, the really big mouse I hug sometimes?”

“ _Ohhhhh_ ,” Bruce breathes out, then really thinks about it. “The Pikachu plushie that’s as tall as him?”

“Yes!”

They high-five, which gives them both pause, and Bruce clears his throat as he turns back. _That_ must’ve been sheer excitement winning over the kind of thing they never engage in. A moment later, both Joker and Bruce are all barely-suppressed giggles and occasional glances at each other, which only serve to set them off again, unbearably bright and easy.

“Remember when I had to buy him a new bed because the plushie took up the whole thing?”

And Joker’s really laughing then, flashes of Tim’s late-night and very sheepish explanation coming to mind, Damian trailing after him with the sole goal of complaining about _Drake ruining my sleep_. He and Bruce had just been lounging in the manor’s most frequented living room, not doing much beyond enjoying each other’s company.

Maybe Sanctuary’s done little but cut open old wounds, maybe the kind of help it’s prepared to offer won’t ever reach either of them. Joker can’t say he minds, anymore. He’s content with the place he’s found for himself, the little life they’ve built together.

“You know, maybe a road trip wasn’t such a bad idea,” he finds himself saying.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me! find me on tumblr @ufonaut


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